Hoffman (“One Fine Day”) makes some dubious moves. He miscegenates chunks of Mendelssohn’s celebrated music with gobbets of Italian opera. His forest, built on a sound stage, looks stagy and airless. But much of this magical, wise, sardonic, sexy play comes through. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Titania is radioactively beautiful. Stanley Tucci’s Puck is amusingly jaded after centuries of playing tricks on hapless mortals. Calista Flockhart de-McBeals herself and cuts loose as Helena, the girl nobody wants. Kevin Kline is a brilliant Bottom, ecstatically hammy in his amateur acting group, wallowing in Titania’s bewitched embrace, poignant as he muses on his dream of asinine metamorphosis.
William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s DreamFox Searchlight
